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Dessert

Ginger Nuts

A sweet baked treat made with syrup, sugar, butter, ginger, allspice, coriander, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Nuts

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the syrup, sugar, and butter until well combined.

  3. Add the salt, ground ginger, allspice, coriander seed, and cayenne pepper. Mix thoroughly.

Shape and bake

  1. Form the dough into small balls, about the size of a bean.

  2. Roll the balls in your hands and place them on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Allspice + coriandertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Coriander + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,949 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Syrup
Provides sweetness and moisture, and helps the nuts stay soft and chewy.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the nuts brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness in the dough.
Ground ginger
Gives the spiced, warm flavour that defines the nuts.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Sugar and syrup darken quickly near the end of baking, so the nuts can turn bitter or burnt if left too long. Pull them when golden brown, as they will firm up as they cool.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, sugar, butter, ginger, allspice, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, sugar, butter, ginger, allspice, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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